“The conditional sales purchase agreement (CSPA) is the best way out for all parties – PT NS, PT NNT and the government,” said NNT president director Martiono Hadianto in an official statement in Mataram on Wednesday as quoted by Antara news agency.

Under the CSPA, which was signed on Nov. 27, PT NNT will supply PT NS with copper concentrate to be processed domestically.

Earlier, PT NS announced a plan to develop a copper smelter and PT NNT committed to supplying copper concentrate in an effort to support a government policy to process mineral ores domestically.

Martiono said it was not ideal for PT NNT to develop its own smelter or concentrate purification facility because it needed a constant supply of concentrate.

Therefore, he said, the company wanted to show its commitment to supporting the government policy by becoming a supplier of copper concentrate to the smelter to be built by PT NS.

“As mandated in the contract of work, we process ore from mines into copper concentrate in Batu Hijau and will send as much concentrate to PT NS as it can process,” said Martiono.

On Wednesday, PT NNT also signed agreements to supply copper concentrate to PT Indovasi Mineral Indonesia and PT Indosmelt, which have announced plans to develop a concentrate smelter in Indonesia.

“Although we have a limited concentrate supply, we will sell all of our concentrate at standard prices to smelters in Indonesia,” said Martiono.

Nusantara Smelting president director Melvin Korompis said with the signing of the CSPA, the company hoped it could build a smelter in Indonesia.

“We are sure that after we get PT NNT’s commitment, and hopefully from PT Freeport Indonesia in the future, we can complete the smelter construction in 2018,” said Melvin. (ebf)